First Continous Swim and Papa John's 10-miler PR

Today marked my fifth day working out/racing this week and I'm super-stoked about my continued progress. I decided to do a bit of a time trial while swimming yesterday, and swam for 45 continuous minutes to see how far I could get. Ended up with 1525 meters. It was a bit boring, I must admit, but I figured I gotta get used to it sometime and I need to get in the water more often anyway, so why not just go for it to see where I am and what I need to do as far as improving. About halfway through I noticed my form was getting a little off, but I muddled through nonetheless and finished up feeling fairly decent. It always takes me a few hundred meters to get into a good groove and get my breathing down, so it'll be interesting to see how this pans out on race day for both Muncie and IMLOU, especially if there is no opportunity (or if I just don't take advantage of the opportunity) to warm up before the start of the race. This morning was the Papa John's 10-miler. I had some GI issues in the morning, and was a bit tired from not getting to bed as early as I had hoped, but a few miles past the start line I fell into a good groove and kept at it. I told Jennifer prior to the race and I was probably gonna go with my one-minute walk at every mile, but since I did so well in Indianapolis last fall with a walk at every two miles, I thought I'd try that again. Well.... that lasted the first 4 miles until we got into the hills of Iroquois Park. I walked probably three times, no more than one minute at a time, through the park, which is really only 3 miles anyway, so technically I averaged one minute walks per mile regardless. Out of the park I saw my fastest mile, but by mile 7 the GI issues had somewhat returned and I was feeling a bit fatigued, so I slowed down quite a bit. I decided to walk a time or two prior to coming up on mile marker 9, knowing that turning down Central Ave. brought with it a nasty hill for probably .2 miles. I walked most of the hill, but then it was all business on the downhill and then the last half mile into the stadium. I can't say I wasn't REALLY tired by that point, but knowing since mile 6 that I was on pace for a PR, I didn't want to take a chance on bonking at the end and missing my goal. Crossing the finish line, I got an official 1:41:20 finishing time, which is more than a 5 minute PR. I'm super proud of this finishing time, and looking forward to see what I can do with the Derby Mini in three weeks. Fastest mile: 9:20. Slowest mile: 10:24.